Gold catalysts have been found efficient for many oxidation reactions. The catalytic activity of these catalysts strongly depend on the particle size of the Au nanoparticles. However, other factors also have a strong influence on the performance of the catalysts such as the method of preparation, choice of the support, addition of other metal, total metal loading over the support, calcination time and reaction conditions. These factors have been studied to optimize the activity and selectivity of the catalysts. The oxidation of benzyl alcohol over supported gold, palladium and gold palladium bimetallic catalysts were investigated in a high-pressure stirred autoclave and a glass reactor. For the catalyst screening gold palladium catalysts supported on various oxides e.g. Titania, Zirconia, Ceria, MgO and Carbon were prepared and compared to find the most optimized catalyst for solvent free benzyl alcohol oxidation in terms of selectivity and activity resulting in benzaldehyde formation as a major product. The disproportionation of benzyl alcohol has been found as a source of toluene formation in the solvent free oxidation of benzyl alcohol using supported gold palladium catalysts. When gold-palladium catalyst supported over MgO was used for this reaction, the toluene selectivity reduced substantially at the cost of conversion. Different preparation methods were used to prepare titania supported bimetallic catalysts. It was found that supported bimetallic catalysts prepared by physical grind method are more active than that prepared by impregnation method. The physical grind method is more facile and greener way to prepare chlorine free catalyst. To optimize the catalyst activity and selectivity various supported bimetallic catalysts were prepared with different total Au–Pd metal loadings and with different Au–Pd metal ratios. Oxidation of benzyl alcohol was also performed in glass reactor to compare the oxidation results with the Hi-Tech autoclave. Different characterization techniques such as TGA, STEM with EDX, XRD and XPS were used to characterize the morphology and particle size of the catalysts. A paper titled “Physical mixing of metal acetates: Optimisation of catalyst parameters to produce highly active bimetallic catalysts” out of this work has been published in the Journal of Catalysis Science & Technology, Royal Society of Chemistry (2013, 3, 2910-2917).